Addon: Power Auras

A week or so ago WowInsider did an article about a rogue tanking Mother Shiraz. I watched the video and I spent more time wondering about his HUD than actually watching him tank. It turns out it wasn’t really a HUD (ie, didn’t include health/energy bars) instead it was the addon Power Auras.

I downloaded the addon and have just started to play with it.What it does:
Power Auras will show a symbol on your screen/make a sound when you/your party/your opponent/your focus does/does not have a buff/debuff.

There’s about 50 symbols included or you can add your own.. they can be stretched, flipped, scaled and positioned wherever you want them on the screen. There’s entrance and exit animations..and you can add sounds to events.

Auras can be configured for individual toons.. or you can setup auras for all your toons.

Examples:
Lilac standing in Shatt, two auras showing.

Aura 1, yellow lines tell me she doesn’t currently have the “Well Fed” Buff. This is in the General section and shows up for all of my toons.

Aura 2, Purple symbol tells me she doesn’t currently have a “Major Shadow Power” or “Flask of Pure Death” active.

This has made it -much- easier to keep my buffs up in raids.

Setting up a new aura:
Let’s say I’ve decided that I want to show an aura when my character does not have the “Well Fed” buff. This is something I want on all of my toons.

Type “/powa” to open the config screen on the left.

Because I want this on all of my toons I’ll choose “Global 1″ (if I already had 24 global auras I’d choose Global 2)(If it was an aura -only- for this toon I’d instead chose “Page 1″ under Character effects) and then click “New” (or “Edit”).

This will open the second setup screen.

On this setup screen you choose what symbol you want to show up, what color it should be, where it should show, how big it should be.

At the bottom on the “Activation” tab you specify when you want this symbol to show. “Well Fed” is a buff so I choose “buff” from the drop down. The name of the buff is “Well Fed” so I typed that in the text box. Below that, I choose “ignore uppercase” … I think it was a default I didn’t really change it. Most importantly, I choose “Show when not active”. That is, “if I don’t have the ‘well fed’ buff on me, show the symbol I setup above.”.

You can use the animation and sound tabs to add entry/exit animations to the symbol and to have the addon make a sound when the symbol shows up/leaves.

That’s it.

Example Auras:
Show symbol when I don’t have “well fed” buff.
Show symbol when I’m in combat and any pally in my party has “Crusader Aura” up. (it’s a buff on me.. so I can treat it like a buff)(allows me to remind them/myself to change pally aura).
Show symbol when my target has “spell reflect”. (So I stop shooting myself)

Warlock:
Show symbol when I don’t have either “major shadow power/pure death” (slash is used for “or”) flasks.
Show symbol when I’m in combat and at 100% health. (to remind me on my warlock to lifetap a little).
Show symbol when I’m in a raid and my imp pet is not phase shifted. (I unshift him to get buffs and then need to remember to phase shift him so he doesn’t get mushed).
Show symbol when I’m in a raid and in combat and my imp pet is at full mana (reminder to me to use dark pact).
Show symbol when Nightfall proc’s for a 0 cast time shadow bolt (buff is called “Shadow Trance”)

Hunter:
Show symbol when my target doesn’t have a sting on it. (reminder to sting them)

Paladin:
Show symbol when I don’t have “Seal of” up on myself.
Show symbol when I don’t have “Blessing of” up on myself. (though really I use pally power to manage my blessings)

[edited to add:]
I use Power Auras (continued). The new author of Power Auras is -very- responsive. There is a WowAce version called Avion(was Power Auras 2). I haven’t tested it so I can’t speak to its quality.

9 comments to Addon: Power Auras

These are really cool! I used to be addicted to Arc Hud (it broke one expansion and I never fixed it) but this might be worth trying! I like it better when it’s subtle and pretty. (yes, i’m a girl. we like pretty. )

oh and about the macro thing- the sound that Kill command makes isn’t an error sound- it’s just this TERRIBLE Chuuung sound and it goes off every time you try to cast it whether it succeeds or not. Very annoying- not pretty. we don’t like it.

An interesting find. While I love customizing my UI, I prefer a very minimalized design that gives me the information I need without appearing cluttered or giving information overload. Power Auras might fit that bill; I’ll have to try to after I come back from my trip this weekend.

When anyone in my party has mana below 10%, show this symbol on my screen (Choose mana from drop down, slide to 10%, check “party member” or “raid member”)
OR
When my friendlytarget has mana below 10%, show this symbol on my screen. (choose mana from drop down, slide to 10%, check “friendly target”)